Welcome to the Room
by Rianne
Summary: A reunion for Sara.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: Characters not mine, title not mine, there is very little in this world that is.

**Author Notes**: A tiny bit of something I just had the urge to write out of my system.

Welcome to the room, Sara.

_By Rianne._

It was almost like seeing a ghost at first.

Or a mirage.

The image obscured by the rapid, blurred passing of traffic.

By the reflections of sun and light and dark.

Too hard to see clearly.

But she was transfixed.

She couldn't have ever anticipated that it was going to feel this way.

A flood of intricate emotions making her already tired heart begin to ache.

Forehead creasing to keep that translucent evasive image steady.

Her preoccupation keeping her frozen in place as her brain worked in overdrive.

And in this high speed environment she felt like the only static one.

The only one motionless.

She could see her own reflection.

A thin, dark clothed line, dividing the chaos with her stillness.

Waiting.

Frown running in horizontal opposition to the elegance of her vertical stance.

And she took time to just look.

Not ready for the moment just yet.

Standing away, across the road, leaning back into the sturdy shelter of the building.

Watching time pass in vivid animation across the expressive surface before her.

The shimmering ever changing motion past the small café making the window into a drive in movie of surrounding life.

And in her quiet enclave she let herself feel.

Really feel.

Knowing now was no time to be afraid of things she could not deny.

Burrowing through pathways untaken.

Unearthing rich vastnesses of anger, fear, hurt, terrifying memories, emotional wounds still scarred and raw.

There was so much to say, so much blame, so much forgiveness.

And she finally allowed her nerves get the better of her.

Her churning stomach rumbling untamed.

And she even allowed herself to question.

Question whether she shouldn't take heed of the twisting in her belly and just let the past slide away.

Whether she shouldn't focus on the here and now and the beautiful glow of the future.

Maybe this wasn't a good idea.

But in her heart she knew she had to do this to move on.

To step out of the shadows.

To shake off the ties that bound.

But it was hard to swallow past that lump in her throat.

She concentrated a calming moment upon the version of herself reflected back.

And was both surprised and afraid of her own darkness.

Tall, dark clothed figure.

Willowy, and elongated, but steady.

Impossible for others to tell that beneath the stoic unmoving surface her thoughts were running wild.

Cloaked in self-imposed shadows, stark against the San Francisco sunshine.

She didn't want to be that sallow figure anymore, she longed to express the lightness she had gained, the love and the clarity, the happiness and laughter she had shared.

Her inner light no longer reflected the dull muted colours of her exterior.

Yet she also wasn't quite ready yet to relinquish her protective exterior.

And this meeting wasn't just about her.

She refocused on the other person, the one she watched.

The other in the window beyond herself that was static.

Seated at the small table by the café window.

Occasionally lifting the cup to lips with careful delicacy.

A faint tremble along the older limbs.

Completely unaware of was being so closely studied?

Of being carefully scrutinised for the effects of more than twenty years past?

Was the greying curled hair on the back of the neck rising?

Were the trembling fingers from the anxiety of waiting?

From the building feeling of something momentous about to happen?

Or was she just projecting?

Imposing her own confusing emotions upon this person she was supposed to know, had once known as well as herself.

This person who should instinctively know her.

This ghost of a person before her.

Not what she remembered, not quite what she expected either in spite of everything.

There was a yearning there she had not expected.

A longing for something long missing from her life.

Something she had been forced to make do without.

In the sheltering building at her back a clock began to chime.

The harmonious notes signalling to her that it was time.

Running their waving tune down the very bones of her spine, feeling them reverberate right to her very edges.

She straightened her already spotless clothing, wanting to look nothing but her best when seen for the first time in all these years.

Wanting to be thought beautiful by someone that despite everything mattered so very much to her.

She breathed in, deep and slow.

Steeling herself with everything she had.

And crossed the road in a blur, having to lose sight of the figure in the window seat momentarily.

A hippie jangle of bells greeted her as she opened the well used glass door.

Several eyes rose, but her attention was only waiting to be returned by one other in that small cluttered chatter filled room.

Her heart pounding so hard.

The child inside her desperate to throw herself across the room and bury her face into the instinctively familiar shelter as she sobbed out her heartbreak.

She hadn't expected that.

That surge of emotion so strong it ached.

Then as if sensing the intensity of her gaze the needed for eyes raised to hers.

And met.

Matching eyes.

The figure rose, as the tears rose inside her.

Tall, just like her.

Slim.

Beautiful.

Smiling, happy to see her, cautious, fearful, sad, and starting to cry too.

Her nails were tight in her palm, stinging, she could no longer see their audience, the world around them a colourful iridescent blur.

And her voice, barely audible, lost and breaking, tumbled uncontrollably forth on a heart wrenching sob.

"Mom..."


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** This takes place slightly previous to chapter one, which takes place just after 'Goodbye and Good Luck'. CSI invented the character of Laura Sidle and her past, I'm just giving her a current.

This story hopefully fills out the conversation Grissom and Brass have in 'You Kill Me' where Grissom says that Sara is in San Francisco with her Mother. I also have the power of foresight and have seen House of Hoarders, which filled in a little more info about Sara's Mother. (Although as always with CSI, it only gave a little.) There are also brief references to 'Dead Doll'.

**Author Notes**: I didn't plan for this to ever have more than one chapter, but inspiration hit me yesterday when I read over the reviews for the first chapter, and these days I find that if I don't write it when inspiration strikes I take forever to get it done... So thank you to all those who wanted to read more. I hope this begins to satisfy curiosity.

**Welcome to the Room.**

By Rianne

_Chapter Two._

It had been in the news and she had paid it little heed.

Vegas C.S.I - Kidnapped.

Sounded too much like a bad TV movie and she had always shunned that kind of movie anyway.

Too much violence.

She avoided violence, and never liked to talk about why.

But considering that Vegas was hundreds of miles from San Francisco, the staff in her small office still mentioned the case, chattering eagerly about whether the young woman would be found, it served as good entertaining fodder for them, made the day pass quicker.

It was one of those news stories that made the community want to speak, a good v's bad attention grabber, the kind of event which captured your heart and your head, but always seemed to cause untold long lasting damage to those involved and their loved ones and was very quickly forgotten by the world at large.

The kind of story which clearly laid out people in black and white, good deeds and evil actions, whereas she knew the world in shades of grey.

But didn't like to share her somewhat skewed perspective.

So she kept her head down, increased her typing speed.

Didn't partake in idle chitchat about someone else's misery.

Until they began surmising what a kidnapper might do to subdue a trained professional and she found herself calmly and quietly getting to her feet and moving away from the conversation.

Distance yourself.

That was what her doctor said.

Relocate yourself in the present.

She had come a thousand miles, but there were moments when the thoughts returned.

Bringing emotions to the surface that medication and time could not remove or even dull.

The flickers in her brain were of memories too long repressed.

Medical restraints.

Screaming voices.

Needle sticks.

Nothingness.

The madness.

Being out of control.

Pain.

The shocking flare of a fist to the jaw.

To the stomach.

The never forgiven hurt of someone you loved beating you.

The small Ladies bathroom was cold and sound echoed.

So she tried to make none.

Adept at keeping herself quietly hidden.

All except her long frame, legs that couldn't be folded up.

Knees that these days couldn't take the compression.

The counting trick helped.

Backwards from twenty, ten had never been enough.

Passed time, so that when she returned they would hopefully have found other topics of conversation.

Yet, when she did go back to her office Alison and Jim were in the corner, wiring up the old battered TV they usually used for training courses.

Screen already humming with static as they scanned for a signal.

Looking for the all day news station.

And got it, a proud murmur rustling through the air.

As a slightly fuzzy news reader appeared, coiffed to the nines.

Announcing with a genuine smile that the CSI had in fact been found alive.

Everyone waited on tenterhooks.

They were going live to a reporter on the scene.

The cloud of dust on the screen clearing to reveal a helicopter landing.

A thin balding man, was talking to the cameras.

A Lab Director Ecklie.

Some emotionless official, shouting into the microphone to be heard over the whir of the rotor blades.

But everyone's attention was on the helicopter.

The gurney emerging from the aircraft held a slim brunette woman, entangled with a mask and equipment.

But she found her eyes instead followed the man who trailed it.

An older man, greying hair under a dusty baseball cap.

His legs working overtime to keep close to the gurney and the woman it carried.

His expression a strange mix of elation and fear.

There was something about the way his eyes never left the wounded woman.

He loved her.

Then the scene was gone, the announcer returning to confirm once again that CSI Sara Sidle had been found.

And a cheer rumbled from those around her, a sound which echoed off her silent body as once again her life changed on a knife edge.

The name, she had to have heard wrong over the happiness of her colleagues.

But then the picture came, taking up half of the screen over the shoulder of the newsreader.

Her heart fell into her toes.

Her old knees gave.

She sank to rest her weight on the table behind her.

Gaze fixed on the woman's picture.

It was Sara.

"Laura if I didn't know better I'd say that was a younger you up there!"

Jim's gleeful voice dragged her attention sharply from the screen.

He took an actual step backwards at the look she gave him.

Realisation crossing over his familiar face.

She felt like she was going to be sick.

It couldn't be Sara, she still lived in San Francisco.

She wasn't in Las Vegas.

Although she didn't have any proof of that.

She hadn't known officially of her daughter's whereabouts since she had graduated from Berkeley and her degree notice had been listed in the San Francisco Chronicle.

That piece of tattered paper was still framed in her bedroom.

Proud of a daughter she did not know.

Newspapers!

The stand outside the office.

She didn't even think, grabbing her purse from the back of her chair and striding as fast as her unsteady legs could carry her.

Jim's voice trailing her out of the room, shouting her name, but there was no time for lengthy explanations.

The stand was there as it always was, passed daily on her trips to and from work.

Newspapers lining the wooden frame, front pages fluttering gently in the Bay breeze.

She snatched the nearest.

Flicking rapidly through the pages.

Words, but no picture.

She needed a picture.

Onto the next and the next.

Mind frantic, eyes scouring the tiny print, fingers smudging the inky residue.

"Ma'am,"

She dismissed the voice.

Until it came again.

"Ma'am, you can't do that. I'm going to need you to buy a paper, or put them down."

But she didn't hear him.

She had found what she wanted.

A picture.

The picture.

The one from the TV screen.

Clutching the paper to her breast she scrambled notes from her purse, throwing them towards the man, not waiting to see them tumble to the ground or caring that she had given him far too much.

She headed blindly to her car. Paper still close to her heart.

Her keys rattling in her trembling hand as she worked the aged lock, before tumbling into the dimness of the inside.

She closed her eyes behind the wheel.

Heart still thumping against the newspaper against her chest.

But for a few moments she couldn't lower the page.

For then it would be true.

She had found her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer**: Fills out the conversation Grissom and Brass have in ... where Grissom says that Sara is in San Francisco with her Mother. I also have the power of foresight and have seen House of Hoarders, which filled in a little more info about Sara's Mother. (Although as always with CSI, it only gave a little.)

**Author Notes:** Lucky or not you actually get two new chapters of this story! (I know!) But as both are ready you can have both together!

**Welcome to the Room.**

By Rianne

_Chapter Three._

She couldn't be here, sat at the side of this busy street with people walking past and stroking their shadows across her sunlight.

This was no place for something as momentous as this.

She needed to be somewhere free, somewhere undisturbed to think and share this moment with no one but herself.

She carefully placed her treasured paper face down on the passenger seat and starting the engine, she drove.

Navigating the familiar winding streets, heading out of the City, following the line of the bay.

Drawing the car to a careful halt in the deserted beach front parking lot, cutting the engine.

Listened for a moment to the hungry roar of the Pacific Ocean, its waves making shore just a few hundred yards from her windshield.

Watched the screaming gulls circle in the currents of air against the clouded sky.

Letting the sounds calm her before her twitching fingers captured the paper again.

Lifting it to lie against the steering wheel.

Spreading the page.

The picture.

Those eyes.

It had been twenty three years since she had seen those eyes.

They were the only clear image she had of that night.

Her daughter's eyes.

Her daughter recoiling from her touch.

Traumatised.

The terror in those eyes.

The way they had looked at her as if she were a stranger.

And that night she had become one to her child.

Her child who should never have had to see the things she did.

Even now her thoughts made her feel like she was spinning.

Lost in spirals of shame, guilt, helplessness and heartbreak.

She had finally been forced too far, faced with the very real possibility that she was in danger of being killed, and if not her, her daughter.

Her unrational mind had decided that now was the time, that she was finally ready to do something about the threat, that was what her doctors had said.

It hadn't been the right thing to do, but in her troubled mind it had been the only way she had seen, having barely survived their last fight.

She had waited until her husband had finally fallen into unconsciousness before, urged on by the demons in her head, she had ended it all.

Yet, all she could remember was being watched.

Those eyes of Sara's silently watching as the Policemen had come and taken her mother away.

Police pictures had shown her being restrained, officers lifting her arms and legs.

Pulling her away from the bleeding body of her husband.

She remembered none of it.

Except those eyes, silently watching from the corner, too large in the face of the skinny, already tall, motionless twelve year old.

Not even flinching as she had called her name over and over, Sara, Sara, Sara... frantically sobbing as she had been escorted away.

Leaving her baby alone in the world.

The hardest memory of all, as it was the only one she considered true.

The others were mere fragments, blurred by rage and alcohol and illness.

Details of her actions added later during testimonies from experts about the damage that she had caused, which had in time become the memories she envisioned rather than recalled.

The number of stab wounds.

The rage, the injuries she herself had sustained in the fights that had provoked her to finally break.

The clinical diagnosis of Schizophrenia.

The recounting of symptoms by hospital staff who had never seen her before in their lives and were just reading barely legible notes from her huge stack of medical files, each visit to the emergency room carefully documented.

Broken nose, dislocated jaw, sprained shoulder, black eye.

So many, over so many years.

Yet, no one had questioned her when she had repeatedly told them that she had slipped, tripped, fallen.

No one had mentioned the alcohol on her breath or the frightened look in her eye that pleaded for someone to notice.

Whilst her sweet, sweet daughter had lied like she had asked her too.

Had stepped in and taken charge when she couldn't. When they had gone home again, the first time, after the very first trip to the hospital, with her husband still behind bars sleeping off his drunken rant at the policeman, her daughter, barely seven, had guided her to sleep in her own tiny twin sized bed, and curling in beside her had rocked her own mother to sleep, stroking her hair, bathing her wounds, pressing gentle kisses to the bruises on her forehead as she whispered her stories, innocent stories about nice things, nice things like handsome princes from storybooks she had read and birds and insects and creatures she had learnt about in school.

She had promised her the very next morning that it would be the last time, the very last time that her Daddy would never get mad like that again. That Mommy wouldn't shout, or cry. That everything was going to be okay.

But it hadn't been, and things had not improved, despite her manically held belief that it had, and her delusions that it would.

It had happened over and over, far too many times.

Her advancing symptoms of schizophrenia more and more apparent, but used by her husband to lay blame.

And Sara had been there.

Sara had been the parent, comforting the sobbing broken mess.

Tidying up the damage caused, cooking the dinners, washing the clothes.

Until that night.

A fingertip trailed the two dimensional curve of her daughters cheek, careful not to smudge the paper picture.

That night had been the last time she had seen Sara.

Glimpses of her being lead away, hand in hand with a Policewoman through the undulating light of the Police beacon.

Until today.

When she had just happened to watch the image of the figure on the gurney.

Her thoughts going out to the rescued woman, never guessing that her interest should be more than just normal human compassion.

Whatever hardship her daughter had endured in the desert, she had survived.

She had been returned to her, by chance.

She had been given a second chance.

She murmured her name, a pang of longing to care for the broken woman on the gurney, just like she had always cared for her.

She could still see that child in the pictured woman before her.

And more frighteningly she could see herself.

But Sara was beautiful.

Haunted, but beautiful.

And she knew however far she had come in the twenty three years what was to blame for that.

She studied the picture hard, admiring the delicate features, picking out what was familiar from the memories of her baby's cheeky cherubic face, she had her own unruly dark hair, and she still had that gap between her teeth.

A distinguishing feature that the Police were asking the public to take notice of in case they were to see her.

Young Sara had always wanted to fix it, but braces had never been within the Sidle house budget.

The image was blurring.

Tears ready to escape.

This was it.

She had found her.

And the temptation she had always fought was back.

She wanted to see her.

For years, when she knew she was in San Francisco she had held back.

She did not know if Sara would ever want to hear from her.

She had never tried to find her mother.

When she had been released from the hospital she had changed her name, had gone back to using her maiden name, Laura Morris.

She had done it to allow herself to restart, a new future.

To avoid people remembering the name in the papers, even a decade on from her incarceration she had been afraid of someone remembering and had wanted to avoid the stigma of murder and mental illness.

She would tell people if she had too, could talk calmly about it now, but there was no need to air her dirty laundry all the time.

With no way of finding her daughter by then as she was out of government organised social care, and with little money to even care for herself let alone search, she had no choice but to do nothing. With Sara now a fully grown adult, she could have been anywhere in the world.

She had wondered if her daughter had searched for her, and not been able to find her under her old name, but at least there was a link, and there were records of her change of name deeds.

Her daughter had been smart, even at twelve, she would remember and know where to look.

But no such call had come.

And self depreciatingly she had thought it was inevitable, no one who had witnessed what Sara had would want to be burdened with a daily reminder.

So there had been no sign of her until the sight of her name in the Chronicle paper had nearly stopped her heart.

It had to be her, there couldn't be many Sidle's and on top of that the chances of one spelling Sara without the H? Too much of a coincidence.

She had felt such awe and wonder at a child of hers gaining a masters degree, and she had found a small amount of peace in that. No child she could have raised would have come that far in life. She had been better off, wherever she had been.

She hadn't been afflicted with the illness she had battled; she hadn't ended up on the streets, or any of the many things that could have easily befallen her.

But she had imagined scenarios of every kind, but mainly simple kismet accidents, bumping into her daughter in the windy streets of Frisco. Stepping into a bakery and finding herself behind her in a queue. Looking across at a streetlight to find her in the next car.

And every time she just knew her.

Instinctively knew her.

She had even hovered around the university buildings on her lunch breaks, hoping.

And been disappointed.

Wondering if the University office might give her an address, or at least a current workplace, but she was never brave enough to ask.

And all this time she had been in another State.

Working in an amazing job.

Helping others.

Loved by others.

She couldn't help but see this as a sign.

A reminder that not all was lost.

Her daughter was alive, when by all accounts she shouldn't be.

Her daughter helped people for a living, that beautiful soul, that caring light within her hadn't died that night as she had always feared.

What harm could contacting her do?

She did not have to reply if she did not wish too.

She could contact her to wish her well in her recovery.

The notion was in her heart now.

After all that had happened.

This was a chance to begin to set things right.

To rid them both of old ghosts.

She had so much to tell her, so much she wanted to show her.

About how far she had come, how different her life was now.

And she had so many questions.

At the edge of the parking lot a lone telephone box stood, and the gear well was full of parking meter change.

She wouldn't be able to hear the voice she longed too.

But she could do this, reach out, change everything, and give her daughter the choice.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** Title, characters etc all not mine!

**Author Notes:** Happy New Year to All! All the recent talk of Sara and her Mother has encouraged me to brush the dust off what I had written of this and post it!

**Welcome To The Room.**

By Rianne.

_Chapter Four._

She counted the change.

Weighting the many coins in her palm.

There should be enough to make an out of state call, even with the possibility of being put on hold.

There was a phone in her small shoebox apartment, but she felt a conversation like this needed to take place in a wide open space.

She didn't want to hear her own awkward words echo back at her from the thin enclosing walls.

She didn't own a cell phone.

Even now electronic gadgets were a little beyond her price range.

She had never had money, her entire life.

Certainly not for unnecessary luxuries.

Her parents had struggled, she had spent her childhood in hand-me-down clothing, trousers that never reached her ankles, she had married Sara's father young, always working to barely make ends meet, and in cyclical fashion had sent her own daughter off to school in half-mast second hand trousers.

Although she had tried her best to keep her child fed and clothed, Sara had simply been her mother's daughter where growth spurts had been concerned.

The newspaper description had listed her as 5'9".

They would finally be eye to eye, even if it was only physically.

There was a tingle in her stomach.

Anticipation, excitement, nervousness.

Hope.

She had something good to wish for again.

Her fingers were trembling as she left the car, took the few steps up towards the lone phone box.

And then a few steps back.

It took another few minutes of restlessly pacing, feet imitating the advance and retreating motion of the waves, before she could pick up the receiver, each drop of a coin a huge step into the unknown, the dial tone ringing in the air, her voice wavering as she tentatively asked the operator for the number of the Las Vegas Crime Lab.

She had to ask twice before the person on the other end could understand her request.

Would she like to be connected?

She took a deep breath.

Yes, she would.

Then the line was being connected.

Her heart was literally beating in her throat.

She could do this, it wouldn't be Sara on the other end, it would be a receptionist.

She talked to receptionists all the time in her job.

The person on the other end of the phone would just be a person like her.

This was no big deal, not a big deal.

Except this person, she knew Sara.

"Las Vegas Crime Lab, Judy speaking. How may I direct your call?"

She paused, clearing her throat, "Hi, yes, I'd like to leave a message."

"Alright, and who would that be for Ma'am?"

She wasn't sure when she had graduated from Miss to Ma'am, but she wasn't altogether pleased about it.

"I'd like to leave a message for one of your CSI's. A Sara Sidle."

It was the first time she had said her daughter's name out loud in more time that she could remember.

The voice on the phone took on a different tone, a more protective edge creeping into her pitch.

It didn't sound like her call had been the first received about Sara today, her name and her face splashed all over the papers and the news.

"And what message would that be?"

Her brain stuttered, what could she say?

She was unprepared.

She had thought the words would come, but they were failing her.

"Ma'am?"

"Could you please tell her that I hope she recovers well, and that if she wants to contact me I can be reached on San Francisco..."

The words came out in a rush. The number a tumble of digits.

"And the name?"

"Huh?"

"Your name Ma'am?"

"Yes, sorry," she muttered distractedly, "Laura Morris Sidle."

And then she placed the receiver back in its cradle disconnecting the call.

Knowing that she could not have answered the same surname questions, the receptionist would undoubtedly have asked, in a good enough way to satisfy.

Her heart was slamming in her breast.

She pressed her fingers to its beat, rubbing her skin through the thin wool of her top.

If she wasn't careful she would end up having a heart attack, several of her colleagues had succumbed over the last few years.

She was getting to old to put her heart on the line like this.

But it was too late now.

No going back.

It was done.

She had to just let the fates play out.

Above her head a gull careered on an updraft squawking at her mockingly.

Her attention traced its graceful gliding through the air.

Yes, it was true that she didn't strictly believe in trusting fates.

She lived her life day by day, worked as hard as she could to make things happen.

But in something as out of the ordinary and long waited for as this, she would allow herself to look to anything for answers.

And more importantly for patience.

Sara would be hospitalised for at least a week, if not longer, and then she would need time to get through her messages, weeks before she got back to work.

She had to forget about this and get on with things.

It was done now, she had done her best.

She should go back to work.

But her mind was far too scattered to explain her earlier behaviour to her colleagues and her boss.

They would be discussing her enough already, Sara's story already intrigued them and now they knew there was a link between the two of them.

The rumour mill would be rife.

She couldn't imagine what they could have come up with by way of explanation by now.

It was just the kind of attention she really did not need.

That she had come to work in that quiet little office to avoid.

She reached her car, but didn't climb back behind the wheel, instead she leant back against the side of her battered old vehicle and watched the sea, letting the wind stir her hair, wishing it could blow the apprehension right out of her.

**000000**

It was days before Grissom set foot in the Lab.

And he barely took three steps before he was surrounded.

Colleagues streaming from the smaller Labs all along the corridor, all desperate to hear how Sara was from someone closer to the source than Ecklie, who had apparently delivered only the basic information that she was alive, recovering and the doctors were pleased with her progress, all in his usual emotionless monotone.

Wouldn't want anyone to think that he had feelings or an emotional level beneath the Lab Director exterior.

The Hospital had been extremely strict on visitation rules, only Brass and the close team had been allowed in to see her, but the out pouring of flowers and cards and gifts had been stifling.

This was the first time he had left her side in nearly a week.

Greg was with her, he had left the pair playing a slow game of poker, and as he had left he had been unsurprised to note that Sara swathed as comfortably as she could be in hospital bedclothes, already held the upper hand.

Someone might need to sweep her plaster cast for stealth cards, but her spirits were returning.

She was in safe company, and he felt calmer about that, but his hopes to sneak in and out of the Lab unnoticed were clearly flawed.

He felt flustered enough about her recovery before he even factored in the information that the entire Lab now knew he and Sara were together, and yet it was easier than he had imagined to listen and give responses to their compassionate enquiries about how she was doing, and even more surprisingly about how _he_ was doing, showing a level of affection for them both that he had never imagined.

Smiling, touching his shoulder, his arm, unable to contain their happiness at Sara's rescue, when he had thought it was only he who felt that emotion with such intensity.

Sara, she never failed to bring out the best in people, and he wholeheartedly included himself in that.

Finally breaking free he moved with lighter feet to his office, his brain now crammed full with sentiments to pass on.

The office door was closed, his privacy respected even in his absence.

In the corner, under the blue glow his spider munched away happily. Nick having tended to the creature, and it was a damn good job as all that had been in his mind, he had clean forgotten the lone black shadow that watched him work.

The only other change was the tumultuous stack of paper memos which wavered in his inbox. The ever discreet Judy leaving little trace of her role.

His big fingers skimmed through the feather light slips of ephemeral paper, drawing them onto the desk before him as he took a seat.

Sara's name leaping up at him from almost every page. Some from names he knew, officers, CSI's from other shifts. Some from names he did not and those he placed in a separate pile, Sara could see those at a better time, just in case he threw away something genuine.

One about half way through caught his eye, the matching surname drawing him to sit straighter, the thin paper curling in his fingertips.

Laura Morris Sidle. His eyes scanned the brief note again.

It couldn't be.

He thumbed the power button on the computer base unit, barely hearing it whir into life.

He nudged his glasses lower, rubbing his eyes, fingers combing through his beard distractedly.

His anxious tapping of fingernail against teeth counting down the moments as it booted and he opened up several pages. Checking the number on system using reverse dial. A Laura Morris registered, not Sidle.

A driving licence flashed up.

The picture slowly emerging from pixilation.

Well, damn.

The woman staring back at him could not have been more like Sara.

He slumped back into his chair.

Yet now, did he wait? Did he ask Sara what she wanted to do? Did he call the number?

Was it really up to him?


End file.
